Thread 23 : To feel disappointed - and now disgusted too - after reading this in The Observer about the author and her husband from The Salt Path book and film?

[DisappointedReader]

NO POSTS PLEASE UNTIL THREAD 22 IS FULL

The Observer's original exposé: The real Salt Path: how a blockbuster book and film were ...

First thread: To feel disappointed after reading this in The Observer about the author and her husband from The Salt Path book and film? | Mumsnet

Links to threads 2-16, the other 20 Observer articles and videos to date, Raynor Winn/Sally Walker's statement, our timeline and sources can all be accessed in the OP and first few posts of Thread 17: https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/5403285-thread-17-to-feel-disappointed-after-reading-this-in-the-observer-about-the-author-and-her-husband-from-the-salt-path-book-and-film?

Links to threads 18-20 can be found in the OP of Thread 21: https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/5460943-thread-21-to-feel-disappointed-and-now-disgusted-too-after-reading-this-in-the-observer-about-the-author-and-her-husband-from-the-salt-path-book-and-film?

Thread 22:www.mumsnet.com/talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/5470952-thread-22-to-feel-disappointed-and-now-disgusted-too-after-reading-this-in-the-observer-about-the-author-and-her-husband-from-the-salt-path-book-and-film?

Most recent:

• Salt Path: A Very British Scandal, available on Sky Documentaries and NOW TV, 15th December 2025
• ‘Don’t look for the money. I’ve taken it all’: Salt Path author Raynor Winn’s ‘confession’ that she stole from her family | The Observer
• Observer Newsroom: The Real Salt Path Story, Thursday 8th January 2026

New posters joining us in the genuine spirit of our civil discourse are welcome. It would be helpful to get the background from at least some of the Observer exposé items before posting.
To all - Please be extremely cautious when it comes to naming or implicating people and addresses not in the public eye or with no direct connection to the story, and around the understandable health speculations, especially where details are unclear or still emerging. Remember, even Hollywood rabbits attract the odd flea. Please do not engage with drive-by scolders and ploppers who seem to have their own agenda and seek to derail. Avoid @'ing and quoting them as - from experience - this will only encourage them back to the threads. For over 6 months we have done amazingly well together for 22 very interesting, very serious and very silly threads so far. I can't be here as much as I'd like so all help with keeping our discussion walking along in our usual reasonable and respectful fashion is very welcome.

After 22,000 posts there are still new things to look out for on the path:
Podcast series (7 episodes) from The Observer's award-winning Investigative Journalist Chloe Hadjimatheou, 13th January 2026.
The Walkers: The real Salt Path | The Observer

After listening to some of The Walkers: The real Salt Path podcast episodes from The Observer today my thoughts are even more with the victims. I also believe that the publishers, agent and prizegivers must now act and be seen to act.

Please start each post with the podcast episode you are commenting on, for clarity and to help others avoid spoilers if they wish to do so. Many thanks.

As always, keep to the path, no saltiness, eat fudge and drink cider.

NO POSTS PLEASE UNTIL THREAD 22 IS FULL

Actually, my opinion only, I think they should just revoke the award on the basis that the author was disingenuous and it’s not a true story as billed, they no longer wish to be associated with the author.

Depending on whose version of events we listen to, he was either unable to work much for years before his diagnosis because he was too unwell (TSP), or he spent seven years obsessively trying to recover the money he'd invested with his friend on the basis that he'd get back double the invested sum in two years, which somehow precluded him having a job (the 'confession email'). or he fell through the barn roof.

Or they both went on the dole for extended periods and 'farmed' Pen y Maes, with a bit of casual work when it presented itself.

I mean, fair enough, they were renovating a house and raising children, but most people have to have jobs too.

@YourMoneyforFrothingandYourChipsforFree, I'm still wondering about the move to Wales bit, presumably they had a mortgage on Forest Row. We don't know how much, or if they had to get a mortgage for the Welsh house. As you say they could have had enough to buy the Welsh, supposedly dream house and do it up. There is also the question of had Sally done something, as @Stoufer said that made them leave for Wales.

As @ThompsonTwin points out Tim could have done some plastering, but he seems to have given that up, apart from plastering their own place. Unless he was doing plastering jobs in the black, using the cash to renovate. If one of them worked the required hours, they could have been claiming working families tax credits, Sally working part time, Tim volunteers, looks after the children when Sally works. Maybe he was volunteering, because he was already having physical issues from plastering.

That too. I just wanted to poke holes in the confession letter story vs what we know. The reality of why they really left Burton is likely to be shady.

Maybe Sally had done something, maybe they had paid off the mortgage. Could the two be related and the pattern established long before Pwllheli?

I think there was a need to leave the area and “start over”.

Sally wouldn’t need to work, she could claim benefits whilst bringing the children up. Perhaps she did work and Tim excused himself from getting jobs in lieu of raising children, was able to dedicate his time to chasing his lost investment.

Indeed! I think I already mentioned Mr LL was trained by a master plasterer as a yoof and was doing that job alongside night school when I met him. He hoped to become an architect like his uncle but life took over and instead he became a designer (bathrooms and interiors).

We were extremely fortunate to buy a six bedroom house in Hampshire in the late 1990s which needed tons of work (not a complete ruin, but had previously been several flats). Mr LL used his extensive skills to renovate the place - including plastering throughout - in the evenings/days off with me labouring for him. At that point I had my own business and DS was a little bit older than RayMoth's two were when they absconded moved to Wales. We coped with the long hours - we were young/healthy, so you just get on with it! There was never any suggestion of either of us working on the house full time and claiming benefits.

I'm convinced there's so much more to the leaving the Burton Court job story and hope someone comes along who can shed further light on that aspect of things.

Remember Smotyn in TSP?

Well, it hasn't been mentioned for a while but remember there was another Mars bar moment - the dead sheep.
**
HNTDDD
The cover tagline reads: A True Welsh Thriller, where the only dead body is a sheep'.

They are such a tricky pair, I agree @LetsBeSensible, and I would like to know more about the Burton court job, @LibertyLily, leading to the not to be mentioned family secret. Another suggestion about Cooper, a relative of mine got a dodgy mortgage from a businessman they knew in the early 1990s. They were too old, didn't have enough earnings, but he got them a mortgage for a price. They got the house and filled it with men working on a big local development, eventually selling on to one of the tenants.

This businessman was getting people to invest with him, he was taking their money, paying them a bit back for a while, until the people realised that he had spent their money. It worked for quite a long time, because the people believed they were avoiding paying tax. My relative didn't invest any money, they were only able to pay the mortgage because of the tenants. I'm not saying Cooper was taking people's money, but did he get Sally and Tim a mortgage for the Welsh house, that they struggled to pay.

Yes @BewilderingBrandy, poor Smotyn who's death was mourned by Sally so tragically, then buried illegally if I remember correctly :)

I have copied this in again for anyone else who subscribed for the podcasts. Thank you @RainyTuesdaysAndSunnyWednesdays I have an email confirmation that it will expire 13 February. I hope there is a bit of a trend to indicate what the interest was that made us opt in at this time.

Well, as far as i recall in an interview, she worked in the court finance dept. processing fines. One would think it would be hard to steal a substantial amount in that role without it raising suspicion and an angry mob of fined Burtonites demanding why they still owed money because she hadn't logged the payments.

Do you think In a court work situation, that any theft would mean dismissal and risk of prosecution?

Back then you would have still rubbed out mistakes and typed them in again. She may have got away with it until there was an audit. From what we have seen of her she would probably have sobbed and denied all knowledge and they wouldn't have been able to prove whether there was intent or incompetence.

I seem to remember that the early period at the Welsh farmhouse was when SW said she was doing the first couple of years of a law degree. And rebuilding the house stone by stone, slate by slate and looking after a newborn and a toddler.

This was a recorded 'to camera' interview in a 'women and their career breaks' type series. I can't find it now but it was linked on one of the early threads. No mention that I can recall of her having any paid work in this period. If anyone has the link handy it would be interesting to hear again how she explains the end of the Burton court job.

When was she there as before all the tech etc much simpler if up to no good (?)

Or she could have been a bit lax with confidentiality. I imagine she would have had quite a lot of private information about people in this situation? I don't know anything about the running of a court, but could it be possible that she was fired for spreading information that she should have kept quiet about?

I don't know if this is the interview @RockyPath but I find it difficult to listen to it. Warning to @DisappointedReader very breathy and insincere:

Bing Videos

They very likely would have dismissed Sally if she was caught, as you say @BewilderingBrandy, Sally can get herself out of difficult situations. Then Sally would not have a reference, It was probably easy for her to get the bookkeeping job at the hotel based on her college qualification. She would just say she's been being a mum.

Just seen your post @Vroomfondleswaistcoat, interesting thought, not her usual thing, but we haven't discovered everything yet.

SW says that she gave up first her studying and then her job at the courts because her wages did not cover the childcare on "Career Interrupted", she then gives their reasons why they moved to Wales.

https://techpixies.com/career-interrupted-episode-283-raynor-winn/

Snort. Yes, getting arrested for embezzlement from your employers, skipping bail, sleeping in your car and 'crisscrossing the country to avoid the police and CCTV' while eating only two sandwiches and a single sausage would also tend to result in holes in the CV.

But possibly not quite the inspirational vibe the Tech Pixies were looking for...

@RockyPath, your post made me chuckle, I'm sorry I can't remember who the poster was, they posted that when Salray talks about rebuilding the house, stone by stone and slate by slate, she makes it sound like, all anyone else has done, is decorate their hallways.

Now I'm chuckling at the two sandwiches and sausage @AbovetheVaultedSky :)

It was the late 80s. As I've mused aloud here before, back then there was no online anything. Records were filing cabinets full of paper. Payments were cash and cheques. There was probably a counter at the court for people who were paying fines in person with a till and a handwritten ledger. No pesky digital footprints or electronic trail to expose someone fiddling the books. A bit of Tippex, a few flourishes with a biro and some photocopy fakery would probably be enough to siphon off a fair few quid.

And the people paying fines were, by definition, on the wrong side of the law. On the back foot already if it came to arguing the toss about whether they'd paid up.

Very enlightening post thank you, @RockyPath, your last statement, so true as well.

The gardener and the bookkeeper - sounds like a mythical tale. This article says that he did:

Tim did plastering and building jobs, while also working as a gardener at Plas yn Rhiw, a National Trust property.

The Salt Path scandal: what Raynor Winn’s former neighbours think

The law degree was definitely pre-Wales in that interview. And i think it was a course to become a court clerk done via the court itself rather than a law degree. Will need to listen again. Mistakes could have been made.